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“I’m gonna put some gasoline on your head and light it, see how you feel about that.”
Johnny said, “Bend over, let me take a look.” It looked better, a glowing pink. No ooze or flakes. “Let’s put some medicine on it and get you fixed up.”
Jesse rose up fast and said “What kind?” He looked suspicious.
“This,” said Johnny as he held up the WD-40.
“You’re gonna put that on me?”
“Old people use it, spray it on their knees and elbows for arthritis. It keeps rust off stuff. It’ll heal and protect it.”
Jesse looked doubtful, but said, “Okay. If it starts burning, you stop spraying, understand?”
Johnny nodded and Jesse bent over. Jesse sprayed his head liberally with the can’s contents and evidently, it didn’t burn. When he finished spraying, Johnny placed a fresh layer of folded gauze on the burned scalp and slipped one of their mother’s cheap, short-haired blond wigs over Jesse’s head.
Jesse looked in the mirror. The blond wig covered most, but not all of his black hair. The sideburns stuck below it and along the neck near the ears dozens of black curls protruded like escaping worms.
Johnny said, “Now nobody will know you been hurt.” He looked in the mirror over Jesse’s shoulder. “Natural looking, huh?”
Jesse liked it. He thought it made him look younger, maybe a little thinner. He decided they should celebrate. “I’m gonna fix us something to eat.”
“What?”
“Pizza okay?”
“Sure.”
Jesse went into the kitchen and opened the top of the big chest-style freezer. A layer of Tony’s Cheese Pizzas filled the bottom from side to side. Jesse picked out four of them, exposing the frozen face and frosted horn-rimmed glasses of an elderly, heavy-set woman wearing a curly red wig. “‘Lo Mama,” Jesse said. “We’ll get some more Tony’s today, give you your privacy back.” Jesse closed the freezer lid and placed the four cheese pizzas in the oven. He turned the BAKE dial and set the temperature, then went into the living room.
Jesse said, “Momma’s uncovered again.”
“Okay, we’ll get some more today.”
“That’s what I told her.” Jesse continued, “Her Social Security check ought to be in tomorrow, shouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, and we can use the money.” Johnny grinned at an old memory. “Least, nowadays she don’t scare you when you see her in there.”
“That ain’t funny,” Jesse said, remembering when they had come home last year and found their mother lying on the kitchen floor, two hundred pounds of five-foot tall, made-up woman, dead as a mackerel. She was dressed for her regular night out, with a red curly wig, black mini-skirt, fishnet stockings, and black spiked high heels. Her blue eye-shadow was almost luminous, and her red lipstick was a little long in one corner of her mouth. Her horn-rimmed eyeglasses had lenses a quarter-inch thick, and her dead eyes looked overly large.
The brothers cried for a while, then talked about what to do, and Johnny decided they could put Momma in the freezer until the next day, and at least get her Social Security check, since they were flat broke. “Momma would want us to,” Johnny said. They wrestled her body into the empty freezer and left her face up.
The next morning, Johnny told Jesse they should take a look and see if she was frozen. Jesse ambled to the freezer, carrying his coffee, with Johnny right behind.
When Jesse opened the lid, he yelled, “Gaah-hahh!” His arm jerked and hot coffee spattered on Johnny’s bare chest, causing him to scream, which caused Jesse to yell again. When the brothers settled down, they walked to the freezer and looked at their mother.
The cold had caused the woman’s body to twist into a distorted position. Her torso was elevated so her head was a foot off the bottom of the freezer, and one of her arms was reaching upward with a clawed hand. Her mouth was twisted into an oval, and her tongue protruded like a purple popsicle. Frost covered her glasses, and the fine hairs on her upper lip carried enough ice to look like a white mustache.
“Guess we’d better thaw her out again, and tie her next time.” Jesse said.
Johnny had snickered, “Yeah, otherwise she might jump out and get you. Bugabugabuga!”
Jesse didn’t say anything, but he glared at Johnny and said, “You gonna help, or just stand around bein’ funny?” They took her out of the freezer and left her on the floor until late that evening, when they tied her to several two-by-fours and returned her to the freezer. They didn’t like looking at their mother every time they needed something, so Jesse bought forty-two Tony’s Cheese Pizzas on sale and covered their mother two-deep.
They had cashed her check the same day and decided Mom would want them to keep it going as long as possible. Tomorrow would be the thirteenth check. It was always nice to have a little extra spending money, and the brothers always remembered to lift the freezer lid and thank her when they brought the cash home.
***
After polishing off the pizzas, the brothers left the house and drove their other station wagon toward the international bridge and Ojinaga. Johnny drove, and since leaving the house, he had been wiping at his eye below the black bandage.
